Testimonial from Doubletree Hotel San Francisco Airport

"Lori was a pleasure to work with throughout the entire process. Her partnership during the entire planning process as well as while she was on-site assured a great event! Lori’s attention to detail and excellent communication skills made it possible to effectively share her expectations with our operations team. I look forward to working with her again in the near future!"

~JenniferDer, Sr. Sr. Catering Sales Manager at the Doubletree Hotel San Francisco Airport

Testimonial from Amy and Mike Sachwitz

"After working with Lori Losee, we would highly recommend her to anyone with event planning needs. Her attention to detail and can-do attitude alleviated many of the stresses that would normally occur in planning a big event. Our wedding went off without a hitch, and it was due in no small part to the efforts of Lori!"
~Mike and Amy Sachwitz

Alpha Phi Pacific Northwest Conference

This weekend I had the pleasure of travelling to San Francisco for the 2009 Alpha Phi Pacific Northwest Conference. This was the third conference as the event coordinator.

Planning for this year's event began last summer finalizing dates and a venue to host the 190 participants Alpha Phi Executive Office and Foundation Staff and members of the Alpha Phi International Executive Board and collegians and alumnae from Canada, Washington, Idaho, Oregon and California.

This year's conference was held at the Doubletree Hotel San Francisco Airport. It was a fantastic venue with great staff work with in preparation of the event and the successful execution of the conference.

The theme for this year was Alpha Phi First Class. For Friday night's dinner we used that idea to create a nightclub themed dinner with a purple carpet entrance with VIP check-in.
Saturday night was our Red Dress Gala event to promote cardiac care. The event included a heart healthy version of the Alpha Phi Foundation Price is Right game.

Pirate themed Birthday Party (January 10, 2009)

This past weekend, I planned my son Grant's 4th birthday party. Ever since we visited Disneyland last April and met Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, my son has been obsessed. It was then he asked for a pirate party so I began planning 10 months before his birthday.

Anytime I found anything pirate I drew some inspirations including party favors, decorations, games and cake ideas I put it into my idea notebook for later.

I created his invitations from my digital scrapbook files and then had Costco print the invitations as 5X7 photo cards.

Each party guest upon boarding our Pirate Ship recived their own Pirate name and several pieces of pirate flair from hats, an eye patch to a gold earring.

I work with Shelley from A Tier Above Cakes to create an amazing replica Treasure chest cake. When the guests arrived, they said how much they liked my "centerpiece." Once I told them that the "centerpiece" was an actual cake they couldn't believe it. It was realistic looking all the way down the sugar sand and candy pearl necklace and jewels.

My husband (assistant) helped me turn our garage into a sunken pirate ship where all of the younger party guests ventured for games and playtime. The kids played pirate ship battle in two homemade pirate ships, digging for coins in a sand pit, "Pin the Treasure Chest on the X." and a Parrot pinata.

After this experience, I would really like to get into planning more events like this. It was so much fun.

How a wedding planner can make your life as a bride easier and more fun!

When I first got engaged (18 months before I got married to my college sweetheart) I never thought I needed a wedding coordinator. My first thought was why I should have to pay someone to help me to plan my wedding.

Then reality hit about 6 months before my big day, after I organized and planned everything myself, the internal wedding planner in me, thought how was I the bride going to make all of this happen on my bid day while still being the bride.

Thank goodness a good friend of mine who was a wedding planner whom I met while I was a newspaper reporter in Gig Harbor explained to me how she could make my vision and plan come true while still enjoying my wedding day. She said that all I had to worry about was and saying was walking down the aisle and saying, "I Do."

My day of coordinator was fantastic and that is how I have modeled Elegant Affairs after the way I was treated on my big day. I love what I do and this isn't my full-time job. My full-time job is being the best mommy to my two boys. I do this because I love weddings!

The vision for Elegant Affairs is to help brides who were just like me who just need help on their wedding day and/or help brides actually start the wedding planning process from selecting a venue, a photographer and helping with designing the overall layout for one of the biggest days of a couple's future together as husband and wife. I am very detail-oriented and I go beyond the call of duty to make sure that your vision for your day comes true while on any budget.

September 2008 Wedding Expo at Tacoma Dome

The Wedding Expo was this past weekend and I can't believe it came and went so fast. I remember booking my booth back in June thinking, "Oh, my gosh, what have I gotten myself into, am I crazy."

Believe or not, I'm not crazy and everything went I think really well. I think the best part of the booth at the show was having Sara and Roni doing hair and make-up demonstrations, which I think drew a good crowd and I was able to meet a lot of people who just stopped to watch.

The other great part of the Expo was all of the people that I got to meet, from making some good contacts with vendors and then meeting all of the excited brides, grooms, mothers and friends which I love. I was really surprised by how many people I know were there. I spotted several people from my high school at the show and it was great catching up.

Now, only time will tell how to rate my success is seeing just how many decide that working with me on their wedding is the only way to go.

First Blog Post

For many months I have been thinking about starting a blog, but I didn't know how to start and what I should blog about. There are so many things on my mind, I just don't know where to start.

I decided to add my blog to my wedding Web site after hearing from many other wedding industry professionals that this is great for potential clients so they understand you as a person and not just a vendor.

As many of you know, I started Elegant Affairs back in 2005. My vision for this company came out of my own wedding in 2003 to Steve my college sweetheart after planning my wedding after an 18-month engagement. Yeah, I know that is a long time, but if you know me, I am a perfectionist and I wanted everything to be perfect no matter how long that would take me. I figured it took Steve long enough to ask me to be his wife, I could take my time in sealing the deal.

I loved planning every single moment, from generating a wedding Bible full of ideas both realistic and unrealistic to a list of vendors I wanted to work with to every single piece of material related to the wedding industry.

Finally, after dating for nearly six years and nearly a two year long engagement the big day finally was here. Now, of course there were things I would love to differently like finding a better photographer to having a limo that had a working air conditioner (yes, in Washington in June it got up to 90 degrees), but to this day more five years later, people are still talking about how much fun it was to come to my wedding, some have admitted to me it was better than their own.
Now, that is what your wedding is supposed to be like and when the idea of Elegant Affairs was born.

My first adventure into this business came from a couple that Steve worked with. They met in June, engaged in September and married in December. My task was to plan an economical budget with a bride who lived in Alaska and had no idea how to plan a wedding. It was a very intense three months, but the day of the wedding couldn't be sweeter, everything came off without a hitch. It was a beautiful ceremony and a great reception and I couldn't ask for a better wedding.

I learned a lot from that first wedding and knew with Grant (my oldest son who is now 3 but at the time of that wedding was only six months old) that trying to be a wedding coordinator full-time was out of the question. I was a new stay at home mom, finally leaving my job at the Peninsula Gateway after four years. That was my first job right out of college and working as a reporter was a dream of mine. But the reason why I left is that I didn't want Grant growing up in daycare, that is not the kind of mom I was.

So, I decided to wait on Elegant Affairs and I came back with a vengeance in September 2007, only three months after having Jackson. A sorority sister of mine was getting married and posted a bulletin on Myspace looking for a wedding coordinator so I jumped on the chance to work with a bride I already knew. They were a great couple to work with and so much fun to be around, which made my job easy. Their wedding was in May and they have lived happily ever after.

After that experience, I knew that both boys were old enough I can really focus my energy onto making Elegant Affairs what I always dreamed it could be. My first advertising adventure will be next month, September 13-14 at the Tacoma Bridal Show.